To
play the
game to
death,
a mystery woman
glides into place
for mere
seconds –
love
is like
the rapid
broken
heart beat
of a record’s
scratched
black
soul crooning to pawns aglow
behind red wine lined glasses brimming
with rosy fireside espionage before… check mate.

Dusk settles like fine dust
when streetlights escort
evening into hallways.
Nightfall has attached itself
to the shoulders of ordinary people
carrying stories and news,
usually exuding on inhalation
of ritual warm kettle steam
through herbal nostrils.
Tonight is different –
his eyes still have big, black
dark circles underneath.Just write poems for me. Don’t tell me about your day.
She knows he’s secretly
hoping cupped china
will somehow soothe the aftershock
of his news as it wields its blows
like sledgehammers,
nailing her heart against the chipped
plaster ceiling;
its throbbing veneer draws his eyes
which bear cross-hatched shadows,
subdued and worn from penumbra tears
that fell only a few tea breaks ago.What kind of woman is she to make you want to do this?
It was by the coffee machine
that the sun began to fade
on all their stories
and memories; yellowing pages
turned into ghosted
fragments when shot to flames
under florescent tubes
only to dissipate with the aroma of coffee –
meanwhile, her aroma happily swirled
inside lipstick and white froth.
She sips her chamomile, redolent of betrayal –Don’t tell me about your day. Don’t shed the dust.

wrap me in strange arms
not sinew’s calm unity of muscle to bone
but like before when molten flesh
was writhing, malleable, lasting –
not like now with intangible flame
shot from an archer’s crossbow –
with quick precision

writhe with me in twisting turns
not rolling ambiguity’s speech of tongues
but like before when deception unraveled
to suffocate me with a slithering hiss –
do not place your wreath
in the space where the cobra stabs –
with quick precision